Coffee culture

A barista is the difference between a simple coffee and a sublime sip of aromatic heaven.

It should have a glossy sheen to the surface, with a velvety texture." Vernon Tava could be talking about a fine painting; instead, the coffee roaster and barista at Melbourne's Atomica Caffe is describing the milk in a perfect latte. "And it should be just on hot - not so that the skin is hanging off the roof of your mouth." He can also detail the set of the grind ("it's better to have a good, hard pack in a slightly coarser ground"), why beans are ripe for roasting at two to three days old, why the coffee is best extracted within 40 minutes of the beans being ground and why espresso should pour in a thin 30-second stream.

Ah, coffee nirvana. It's so much more than 43-bean flavour these days. And Tava's passion is part of a public fervour that has seen Australia's love of the aromatic bean take off.

Toby Smith, founder of Toby's Estate, a specialty coffee house and espresso school in Sydney's Woolloomooloo, was an early adopter of the new coffee culture. He gave up a law career to answer the call of the bean, spending two years in Brazil, France and Spain learning about coffee, only to return to Australia in 1998 to be shocked by how much things had changed. "There was this huge buzz about coffee," he says.

Australian coffee consumption is running at an all-time high. In September, economic forecaster BIS Shrapnel reported that we consume about 2.4 kilograms per person per year, double that of 30 years ago. (Tea consumption, by contrast, is on the slide.) And cafes, says Sean Edwards, managing director of cafe-industry organisation CafeBiz, are "a $7.5 billion industry in Australia".

It's the coffee that drives the billions. And it's the barista who makes the coffee. In Italy, barista means "barman" but the title also refers to a specialty coffee maker. Savvy cafe owners are realising that if customers know a maestro is behind the machine, they'll be back. Suddenly, the guy who makes the coffee has power.

"It's a valuable skill," says Toby Smith. "If [the barista] wants to leave - or complains about the money - the owner thinks, 'I'll pay him more' because they want to continue pouring gold." Jill Adams, training and development manager of the Coffee Academy at Melbourne's William Angliss TAFE, says a good barista can take home $1000 a week - and there's often a cash bonus on top of that. But they're hardly a drain on the business. As Adams says, "A kilo-sized bag of coffee costs $25 to $28 and that makes about 130 cups with wastage." She estimates that with the cost of milk, labour and other overheads, your $3 flat white costs just 30 cents to make.

It's not just the pay packet of the barista that's on the rise, either. The status of the job has skyrocketed. Last year, a 25-year-old from Sydney took out the title of World Champion Barista in Boston. Paul Bassett no longer works in cafes but teaches, consults and has an endorsement deal with Sunbeam. Likewise, Tava says he's seen a social change: at parties, doctors and lawyers want to hear the finer details of making a great coffee. "People are beginning to taste the difference between beans, to actually distinguish great milk. They're becoming a lot more brand conscious."

Ben D'Emden, head barista at Campos Coffee in Sydney's Newtown, adds that the top baristas are passionate about coffee - and a little crazy. "You need to have a bit of an obsessive-compulsive gene. You're doing it hundreds of times every day so to get satisfaction out of it, you need to have the kind of personality that is never satisfied. It's a perfectionist thing that makes you go, 'Yeah, that's good but how can we work on it?'"

Even at-home amateur baristas are feeling the urge to excel. Allison Baker, senior product manager for beverage appliances at Sunbeam, says the market for home espresso machines has expanded at both the cheaper and top ends of the market since they launched a $499 machine in 2001 - and products now range from $110 to $1000 for a one-touch model. "People are entertaining more at home, enjoying coffee at cafes and they want to produce that quality at home."

Toby Smith concurs. "The espresso machine is becoming the new consumer item. Everyone's whacking them in their kitchen and going, 'Hang on. It doesn't taste as good as one from a cafe.'"

So they enrol at his espresso school, which runs a course three nights a week that's booked out four to six weeks in advance. Or they attend the Coffee Academy in Melbourne, which runs a Coffee at Home course for the general public alongside its classes aimed at cafe owners and baristas.

"It's now seen as gourmet cuisine," says Vernon Tava. "People have respect for that, as much as they would for someone who's producing fine wine."

What's in a cup?

The long and the short of the perfect coffee.

While "short" drinks such as the espresso and the macchiato are growing in popularity, we're still a nation of latte drinkers, say coffee retailers. A latte consists of a shot of espresso (generally 30 millilitres) in a glass with steamed milk poured over, topped with a one-centimetre layer of froth. Contrary to the widely held belief that a flat white is stronger, the only difference between the two drinks is the vessel in which they're presented. A flat white is served in a ceramic cup, usually of the same volume (200 millilitres) as a latte glass. However, some cafes will top a latte with extra froth, while others may pour a flat white slightly shorter. True coffee fans favour the "short" drinks.

An espresso or short black is served in a demitasse (small cup). A macchiato is an espresso with a spoonful of milk added to stain the coffee.